The ultimate video convertor for WDTV Live?

k.jacko

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Hi all,

WDTV Live is on latest firmware. Got a BD movie ripped to mp4, which won't play on the WDTV, so i used Handbrake to wrap it in a MKV container; left most settings as 'recommended' (i think). It would then play (really good video quality) on the WDTV but the audio was all garbled.
I used my i7/930 rig to convert it with nothing else running, so not sure why it failed on the audio.

Questions:
1. Is there any specific audio settings in Handbrake i should look for?
2. Is there a better app to convert mp4 to mkv, like MakeMKV?
3. What's the most preferred format for watching DVD/BD on the WDTV Live.

Most of my BD rips are mp4 (did them before getting the WDTV Live), so would prefer to convert mp4 to MKV, my BD player is broken so i can't re-rip from the disks.

I know there's been plenty of posts regarding ripping/converting, but i didn't come across any specific threads.

Thanks for any advice. :)
 
All you do is download and install MKvtoolnix then run MKVmerge.

Drag and drop your MP4 file into it and click start muxing to repackage the video/audio into an MKV container without converting. Now see if the MKV video plays on the WDTV Live.

It is very strange that your H.264/MP4 files are not playing on the WDTV Live, are they M4V files by any chance with an AC3 soundtrack ?

MakeMKV is a ripper only, original video/audio dumped into an MKV.

Handbrake is an x264 encoder that can output MKV.
 
Thanks for the info next010.

I'm not really knowledgeable of this stuff tbh.

See attached for info on audio and video files.
Does you initial advice still stand after seeing the info attached?

Thanks :smashin:
 

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Well.....just downloaded/installed MKVToolnix (with MKVmerge).
it took 171 secs to mux the 2.01Gb mp4 file with no errors.
I'll test it when i get home tonight and let you know.

Thanks.

edit: will WDTV Live play .m4v files?
If not, will MKVToolnix convert is to mkv?
 
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Mediainfo will tell you the codecs used though I suspect you either have an AAC 5.1 or AC3 5.1 soundtrack that the WDTV Live doesn't like in MP4 at least that my guess.

will WDTV Live play .m4v files?

Not sure, M4V support outside Apple tends to be very rare.

If not, will MKVToolnix convert is to mkv?

MKVmerge just repackages compatible video into an MKV container, doesn't convert the original video/audio. If the media player cannot play codec X/Y/Z changing container wont do anything though in your case it might help at least determine if its a codec or container problem with the WDTV Live.
 
Ok, thanks again next. :smashin:
 
Hope you don't mind me posting here for a related question.

I have a few Blu Ray concert iso's which I want to compress the video on, to take up less space on a HDD. eg. Police Certifiable BD with Dolby digital 5.1 track is about 20gb i think ( I didn't rip the Dolby TrueHD track as I don't have a HDMI amp). I would like to get it closer to 10gb.

Can anyone suggest any software to do the video compression with ?

MakeMKV has been suggested for DVD file rips but I am unsure if it can compress the video more. BTW, a file playable on WDTV live would be fine, it doesn't have to be iso...
 
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Hope you don't mind me posting here for a related question.

I have a few Blu Ray concert iso's which I want to compress the video on, to take up less space on a HDD. eg. Police Certifiable BD with Dolby digital 5.1 track is about 20gb i think ( I didn't rip the Dolby TrueHD track as I don't have a HDMI amp). I would like to get it closer to 10gb.

Can anyone suggest any software to do the video compression with ?

MakeMKV has been suggested for DVD file rips but I am unsure if it can compress the video more. BTW, a file playable on WDTV live would be fine, it doesn't have to be iso...


MakeMKV is a DVD/BD ripper only, original video/audio dumped into an MKV.

Handbrake is an x264 encoder that can output x264/MKV.

Feed Handbrake the ISO or the MKV file (input the ISO into MakeMKV) and it will compress the video using x264.

The default encoding setting mode used is constant quality @RF20 which gives no fixed file size output, if you want 10GB exactly on the video tab change the encoding mode to "Target Size".
 
Hi

how exactly do you feed it the iso ? I have it mounted on virtual drive as iso, under it there is BDMV and certificate. I have tried mpls and the mt2s and both come up with errors ie no titles found. The iso plays fine on WDTV and the laptop.

btw it was orginally ripped with anyDVD HD and ClownBD.
 
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Hi

how exactly do you feed it the iso ? I have it mounted on virtual drive as iso, under it there is BDMV and certificate. I have tried mpls and the mt2s and both come up with errors ie no titles found. The iso plays fine on WDTV and the laptop.

btw it was orginally ripped with anyDVD HD and ClownBD.

Handbrake doesn't work with BD's (though if your browse to the Stream folder and have a single M2TS it should open it), the easiest way is to rip with MakeMKV which gives you an standalone MKV file then feed that to Handbrake. If you input the ISO into MKV it will transfer the contents to an MKV file.

Alternatively used Ripbot264 instead, much more cutting edge x264 encoder (Handbrake more user friendly) and it supports Blu-rays as an input.
 
Handbrake doesn't work with BD's (though if your browse to the Stream folder and have a single M2TS it should open it), the easiest way is to rip with MakeMKV which gives you an standalone MKV file then feed that to Handbrake. If you input the ISO into MKV it will transfer the contents to an MKV file.

Alternatively used Ripbot264 instead, much more cutting edge x264 encoder (Handbrake more user friendly) and it supports Blu-rays as an input.

I browsed to the stream folder where there was only 1 m2ts (00000) but it wouldn't accept it, said something about may not be supported. This is a remuxed iso i am trying.

I will try MakeMKV as you suggest. Or maybe I could rip to file again directly with AnyDVD HD instead of iso and see is it will accept it that way before trying Ripbot.
 

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